let the darkness claim us
by EverSparrow
Summary: "There will be a better world for her baby boy, and her only hope is that she helped start it." In which Alice cannot fight off the darkness any longer. TW for torture


**A/N: Written for Round 6 of QLFC as Keeper for the Harpies. **

**Prompt: Write about a character descending into madness of any kind. **

**TW for torture, character death **

**Thank you to Emma for betaing!**

**Word Count: 2006**

It is Alice who knows first that they are coming.

She is sitting on the couch, Neville snuggled tightly in her arms. His chubby face peeps out of the blanket he is swaddled in, a smile on his face through his heavy slumber. _He is always so happy_, Alice thinks with a smile, _only a year old and already a little ray of sunshine_.

"How are you feeling?" Alice looks up to see Frank leaning against the doorway, his glasses askew on his forehead.

"Much better." Alice gives her husband a tired smile, and Frank comes to sit next to her, setting his arm around her shoulders.

"He looks just like you, you know." Frank leans forward to press a kiss to his son's face.

"Well, no wonder he's so beautiful." Alice winks at her husband, and Frank laughs. At the sound, Neville opens his eyes and makes a gurgling sound that sounds quite a bit like laughter.

"He is, isn't he?" Frank tickles Neville, making his son's face break into a wide grin. "Aren't you, Neville?"

Everything has been quiet since the attack on the Potters. Too quiet. Alice tries to feel relieved, tries to feel the peace that she always expected would come at this moment, but she doesn't. She keeps thinking of little Harry Potter, alone in his crib with his parents dead around him. And when she's not thinking of Harry, she thinks of Neville, orphaned without having his mother and father in his life.

And in her heart, although she tries to hide it, she knows that they will come for them next.

* * *

The next day, Frank is called into an Order meeting.

Alice begs him not to go, argues with him for an hour about the potential danger. She has a terrible feeling about it, one so dark and foreboding that it makes her sick.

"Please, Frank—" Alice puts her hand on her husband's shoulder, but he simply brushes it off and stalks off to the front door.

"No, Alice. This is important. There are Death Eaters still out there." Frank's eyes flash with a fiery gleam, and Alice knows he will not change his mind now. He is past convincing. He's too brave, too just, too kind for that.

"That's exactly why you can't go! Think of Neville!" Alice knows she's hit Frank's weakness, and his face flashes with sadness.

"Alice, my love. I'm doing this for him. All of this is for him. So that he can grow up in a world without Death Eaters, without having to be in constant fear." Frank puts his arm around Alice's waist, and she feels her eyes fill with tears. What would she do without him? "I have to go now. But I promise I'll come back. I love you."

"I love you too." Alice finally relents, and she lets her husband press a kiss to her lips before he opens the door and steps outside. She doesn't follow him. She can't bring herself to watch him go.

She plays with Neville for a few hours to take her mind off of everything. He is so innocent, so unafraid, and he laughs every time he knocks over his block tower. He especially loves it when she makes his blocks float up in the air, and he crawls around trying to chase them. And for a moment, Alice really does forget about the danger.

She fixes the two of them some dinner (Neville's favorite, mac and cheese) and sits her son in his tall orange high chair. They eat in silence, and Alice glances at the clock. Four hours. Four hours since her husband set out for the meeting.

She puts Neville to bed, kisses his cheek and whispers that she loves him. Fighting the urge to stay by her son's side, she walks downstairs and sits on the couch, wringing her hands together. Neville's blanket sits beside her. She waits for three more hours.

Finally, she can't wait anymore. She calls Augusta, and her mother-in-law arrives in ten minutes, a worried expression on her stern brow.

"It's Frank, he hasn't come home, and I'm worried that— I think he may be—" Alice can't finish her sentence, and her words are cut off by a sob that racks her body. Without a word, Augusta wraps her daughter-in-law in her arms, and Alice presses her face to the old woman's shoulder.

"I'll take care of Neville." Augusta's voice is warm and gentle, and Alice lets it wrap around her dark thoughts like a blanket. "You go do whatever you need to."

"Thank you," Alice says breathlessly, turning and gingerly opening the door so as not to wake her baby.

"Alice?" Augusta's voice stops her, and Alice turns. "I'll always be here for Neville, and for you. You know that, don't you?"

"Of course." Alice gives Augusta the warmest smile she can muster before slipping out of the door and into the night.

She has her wand out and is preparing to Apparate when suddenly strong hands grab her from behind. One clamps over her mouth and others pin her arms to her sides and rip the wand from her grasp. A loud "Stupefy!" is the last thing she hears before her eyes flutter shut and darkness claims her.

* * *

"Alice? Wake up, my love, please, you have to wake up."

Alice opens her eyes, flinching immediately at the bright light that floods into her view and temporarily blinds her. _Where am I? _

"Oh, _yes. _Wake up, little Alice_, _so we can have some fun." This voice is not kind, not gentle like the one before. This voice is mocking and grating and cruel, and Alice flinches at the sound of it. She knows this voice too well.

Her eyes adjust to the bright light, and she sees that she is tied to a chair in the middle of an empty room, wrists bound behind her. Frank sits beside her on a chair of his own, and in front of her stand a row of four Death Eaters, faces she'd prayed she'd never see again.

"Frank!" She reaches out her hand to him and he grips it tightly, tears swimming in his eyes. They're Neville's eyes, she realizes, and the thought sends a jolt through her chest.

"I'm here," Frank says, his eyes boring into hers. "I'm here." He looks tired, and she realizes he's covered in sweat and tears stain his cheeks. She knows immediately what has caused him so much pain. _The Cruciatus Curse. _

"Yes, he's here. And so am I! Remember me, Alice?" The woman before her steps forward, cackling like a mad woman.

"How could I forget a coward like you, Bellatrix?" Alice spits at the woman, who merely laughs at her attempt of defiance.

"A coward, you say? And yet, who is the one that is all tied up, and who's the one who's going to torture the other?" Bellatrix smiles, an awful sort of half-smile that creeps up one side of her face, revealing two rows of pointed teeth. She looks almost feral, and Alice has to dig her nails into her thigh to keep from shaking. She is not afraid. She has to be brave.

"For what purpose?" Frank's eyes flash, and he grits his teeth. "What information could we possibly have that you would want?"

"Oh, Longbottom, don't be such an idiot." In one brisk step, Bellatrix is in front of Frank, a fistful of his shirt in her hand. She leans her face close to his, leering, anger and madness glinting in her eyes. "Where is he?"

"I don't know who you're talking about." Frank glares at Bellatrix, who merely hisses at him.

"The Dark Lord. Where is he?" The speaker is Rodolphus Lestrange, who looks hesitantly at his wife as if he is afraid of what she might do.

"How should we know?" Alice laughs at the absurdity of it all. As if they would know the whereabouts of a deranged mass murderer.

"If you want to play games, you'd better deal me in." Bellatrix grins and raises her wand, looking between the two Longbottoms. "Who first?"

"Stop!" Frank cries out, his voice thin and brittle. "Please. I promise you, we know nothing."

"Pity that I don't care much for your promises, _Auror_." Bellatrix draws out the word as if it's a curse, and without a second glance, she raises her wand directly in front of Alice. "Crucio!"

Alice sees the spell before she feels it, watches as the red bolt of light strikes her in the center of her chest. And then the pain- pain like nothing she's ever experienced before. It tears through her body, shreds her bones to dust, splits her head in two, and she screams and screams and screams. She can't hear herself through the thundering of the curse, and she's swimming, no, drowning in a sea of cruel laughter and blades that slice her skin to ribbons.

"Stop! Please!" She hears Frank's voice above the darkness, and she clings to it, lets it find it's way into her core. _You can't give up. Not yet. _

Suddenly, she's released, and reality washes over her in a wave of cool relief. Bellatrix yanks her wand back with an exasperated groan and turns to Frank.

"Well, if you want more, Frankie, I am always willing to give you more!" She laughs again as she fires another Cruciatus at Alice's husband, the bolt hitting him square in his heart.

Frank writhes in his chair, his eyes rolling back in his head, and Alice screams.

"Frank! No!"

She watches him shake and quiver and cry out in pain and she weeps, sobs, scrambles around for any way to get close to him, to let him know that she is here, but he's too far. He is slipping, and she knows it.

Finally, Bellatrix relents, and Frank leans back in his chair, panting.

"For the last time, imbeciles. _Where. Is. He_?" Bellatrix is not smiling anymore, and Alice sends a fearful glance to her husband. She knows there is nothing they can do. This might be the last time they see the light of day.

"I love you, Alice. And I'm sorry we couldn't spend more time with our son." Frank looks at her earnestly, and she nods, tears blurring her vision.

"I love you too-"

"Oh, enough! I've waited too long and I'm tired of listening to all these petty declarations of love. Say goodbye, darlings. Pity your son will have to grow up without you. Although, I can't say that's completely a bad thing. You are exhausting." Bellatrix signals her husband to join her, and before Alice can say another word, she is hit with another blasting bolt of pain.

It sears through her, tears up her mind with scissors and knives that send tendrils of pain through her whole body. Alice can't help herself from screaming and screaming and screaming, her raw throat only adding to the raging pain.

The edges of her world begin to bleed with darkness, and through the fog of pain she does her best to keep it at bay. Every part of her body screams for help, but she bites her tongue and thinks of Neville, Frank, Augusta, the three pillars of her world.

She is loved, and she loves so fiercely, and now she's losing everything in a matter of minutes. She tries to keep her baby's face at the forefront of her mind, begs herself to keep thinking of Neville, but the pain and the darkness beckon. Disjointed voices float through her mind, and Neville's face slips from her mind.

"You will— you will never win!" She draws the words from the well of love inside herself and screams them through her pain. There will be a better world for her baby boy, and her only hope is that she helped start it. Then the darkness claims Alice's shattered mind, as she walks willingly into its open arms, unable to fight it off any longer.


End file.
